DeadAlive
by Meixia
Summary: Krycek is in the hospital. Mulder pays a visit.


DeadAlive  
  
The walls looked too.minty. It completely clashed with the smell of ammonia and antibiotics that seemed to be the perfume everyone was sporting, down every hallway, in every room.  
  
Well, it was a hospital.  
  
His head slightly swam as he paced and stopped and paced and waited; he imagined his brain was probably floating around in its own juices, enjoying watching him squirm.  
  
"Mr. Mulder?" An orderly with a clipboard approached, smiling wide and helpful. "Are you waiting to see Mr. Fitzgerald?"  
  
Resisting the urge to roll his eyes at the outrageous fake name Krycek had chosen this time, Mulder simply nodded. "Yes, if I can?"  
  
"You may go in now, if you like." The brunette said with a courteous nod of approval and turned to leave, moving on down the hall. Mulder blinked, and slowly opened the door to room 330.  
  
Krycek had an IV stuck in his good arm, and Mulder was surprised to note that they had taken his prosthesis off so that the left sleeve of his hospital gown was empty and, Mulder thought with a twinge of sympathy, forlorn looking.  
  
He was so busy taking in the resting form that he didn't notice Krycek had opened his eyes and was staring at him.  
  
"Hi," Mulder resisted the urge to wave idiotically, and instead pulled up a chair next to the bed. He sat back and waited for the questions to start.  
  
Instead, all Krycek said was, "Hey, yourself."  
  
Mulder waited for a beat for the other man to continue, but when it became apparent that he had no intention of saying any more than he needed to, Mulder took the ball and ran with it. "Since you're not going to ask questions," he said and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the bed, "then I'll ask you some."  
  
Krycek, despite his bedraggled and drug-laden appearance, grinned slightly. "Shoot."  
  
"How did you survive that head wound?" Real, genuine curiosity in his voice, but not without a hint of wonder and amazement.  
  
Krycek didn't seem at all phased by the question. There was no hesitation in his response, either. "Skinner wasn't very smart, leaving my dead body in the garage." Krycek paused, glanced away, then back again to Mulder. "Alien. Healing power. Spankin' new head without a hole for Alex Krycek." Krycek's grin turned into a softer smile. "You do the math."  
  
"Amazing," Mulder chuckled. "And yet that doesn't surprise me."  
  
Krycek shrugged one-armed. He was seemingly unselfconscious about the missing limb, especially here with Mulder, alone yet together in a small, hospital room. Having a civilized conversation, too. They were apparently touching all bases tonight.  
  
"Why are you here, Mulder?" Krycek asked, and Mulder thought he could hear the silent What do you want? hiding behind it.  
  
A thousand answers appeared to him before he dismissed every one. "Just to talk." Mulder made a small acquiescent gesture with his hands.  
  
Krycek's eyes suddenly narrowed, face filled with suspicion. "They're going to lock me up, Mulder. Why should I talk to you, especially now?"  
  
"Because," and Mulder paused. He had no good answer. "Because I'm the only one who'll listen." He said after a short while of consideration.  
  
"So my bullshit speech back there - you actually believed it." There was amusement evident in the other man's voice, but the tone was almost maudlin.  
  
Krycek was just full of surprises.  
  
What could he do or say? He believed it, and Krycek believed it himself, he was just trying to play the bad-ass.  
  
"We're on the same damn side, Krycek. You said it yourself." Gripped by a powerful and clearly insane urge to tell all, tell everything, Mulder ploughed on and didn't stop to consider that the walls were paper thin, that there were probably Consortium people - hell, even aliens - who were probably listening in on their conversation right now.  
  
"If you can't talk to me, who the hell can you talk to? I believe you, Krycek." And as he said this, he realized he didn't care if this conversation, him just being there, would mean he could be shot tomorrow walking down the street. Krycek was fucking alive. The fact made him slightly giddy and oddly hopeful.  
  
Whole, except for the missing arm and the bullet wounds Skinner had inflicted. But his face was intact and unblemished. He was breathing air and talking. To Mulder.  
  
Mulder felt suddenly exalted.  
  
"I think they're right. I think you are insane." Krycek said, struggling to sit up into a more comfortable position. The pillow looked lumpy and deflated beneath him, and the IV uncomfortable, poking out of his arm.  
  
Mulder placed a hand on Krycek's shoulder, leaned up and over, and placed his other hand with palm flat against Krycek's back, and pulled him against his chest. He took an impossibly long amount of time trying to get the other man comfortably situated, grappling with his chest and arm and shoulder, and when he was satisfied with his work, Mulder sat back down in his chair to regard him silently.  
  
"Thanks," Krycek murmured with a dazed look in his eyes, color stinging his cheeks with embarrassment. Blood, a sign of life. Mulder smiled, indeed feeling insane.  
  
"Talk," Mulder said softly, and on some deeper level of instinct that spoke directly with Krycek's need, he reached out and smoothed his fingers down Krycek's cheek, smiling at the startled expression on the other man's face. "I'm listening."  
  
end. 


End file.
